Obama can't deny his 'pro-abortion' actions

Sunday, August 31, 2008 12:04 AM CDT

Barack Obama is a charming, charismatic, articulate politician; he tells his audiences what he thinks they want to hear, even if his ``facts'' are totally contradictory from one group to the next.

In the pro-life state of South Dakota in June, he shocked a lot of people when he claimed, ``I am not pro-abortion.'' However, at the Planned Parenthood convention, he said his first act as president would be to sign the ``Freedom of Choice'' Act.

In the Illinois Senate, Obama voted against protecting babies from the grotesque brutality of partial-birth abortion. He was the only Illinois senator to argue on the Senate floor against a bill to protect healthy, living children who survived an abortion.

He has also voted to deny parents the right to know if an abortion is being done on their daughter. In this he's joined with the other embarrassment to Illinois, Richard Durbin.

Mr. Obama has also suggested that mothers should not be ``punished'' with a baby by not having information about contraception.

Mr. Obama claims his campaign is different, and indeed it is ``different'' from even the most pro-abortion candidates of the past - Dukakis, Gore, Kerry. Even they did not have a record of voting to leave healthy survivors of an abortion to die on a cold hospital table with no compassionate treatment whatsoever.

If all of Obama's actions are not pro-abortion, then the phrase is meaningless.

Yet Mr. Obama has the fall to tell a pro-life audience he is not ``pro-abortion.''

I have a suggestion for Mr. Obama, a new approach in his campaign: ``The Audacity to Tell the Truth.'' It would decidedly be a change for the better.

For those who care deeply about this issue, John McCain has a 100 percent pro-life voting record on abortion issues.

Paul M. Petry

Heyworth

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